It's Wednesday again, which means another installment of Shakespearean Imagination!
In the area of the world I find myself currently, New England (in the northeast USA), they have a saying: If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute, which is usually attributed to Mark Twain. On Monday, it was snowing and -12°C; today is 14°C with winds up to 30MPH, projected to reach up to 60MPH overnight. So there certainly appears to be some truth to it.
I ramped up my Google-fu and discovered that what Mark Twain actually said was even better. From a speech delivered at the New England Society's Seventy-First Annual Dinner, New York City, Dec. 22, 1876:
I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather-clerk's factory who experiment and learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it.
There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration -- and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go.
If you’re interested, you can read the full text of the speech here.
In honor of that, I give you today’s word:
noun
- A brief, strong rush of wind.
verb
- (of the wind) Blow in gusts.
Synonyms: squall - flurry - blast
First seen in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (written 1593 - 1594). The full text of the play may be found here.